With its novel setup that lets two rows of two people face each other, its living room-esque amenities, and its self-driving technology, the Mercedes-Benz F015 Luxury in Motion concept is a look into the future today, the kind of car that would have been inconceivable in previous years, but not now.
Since its initial unveiling at CES 2015, the Luxury in Motion concept has gotten its share of previews, and this month, a number of publications have related their first-hand accounts of how it’s like to drive the F015 Luxury in Motion, or at least ride in it. Some of the more interesting features include the ability to “drive” the car in self-driving mode even if one isn’t in front of the steering wheel, the ability to bring up a coffee table from the floor of the car with the touch of a button, and of course, the ability to drive itself to a certain extent.
“It will become the third place you will spend time, after your office and your home,” boasted Mercedes Advanced Design Team member Holger Hutzenlaub in an interview with USA Today. “In the future, when cities will be bigger and the chaos greater, the greatest luxury goods will be privacy and time.” He and the rest of his team have set up camp at a decommissioned Navy base in Alameda, Calif., allowing select journalists to take a ride on the F015 and relate their experiences.
However, the Mercedes F015 is more than just the automaker’s self-driving project. While its self-driving features offer an interesting look at how car manufacturers try to ensure the safety of drivers, occupants, and pedestrians, the main takeaway from these journalist accounts is that the F015 is, as Mercedes said at CES, like a living room on wheels, or, as Hutzenlaub calls it, a “personal retreat.” Indeed, this is different from other self-driving concepts that have been unveiled so far, as those cars are mostly minimalist vehicles where the main goal of the automaker (or tech giant, in Google’s case) is to focus on autonomous driving features.